Data Centers Continue to Suck Up Too Much Energy

In recent years high-tech industries have pushed hard to curb the negative impact their products have on the environment, from instituting battery recycling programs to producing electricity with solar cells.

Now, it seems the growing success and rapid adoption of so many of these energy consuming products has spawned concerns of a potential growing “green” crisis.

And the United States environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sounding the alarm. In fact, says the EPA, the rate the increasing power consumption of servers and data centers will more than double in five years. At that pace the U.S. will need to add 10 new electric power plants to keep up with demand. 

The report, which was commission by Congress last year, concentrates on combating rising energy costs in data centers, and how they might reduce energy consumption. The EPA also produced guidelines and developed energy efficiency benchmarks for servers and data centers.

As the U.S. economy increasingly shifts from paper-based to digital information management, data centers have become a vital part of business, communication, academic, and governmental systems.

Data centers are facilities that contain computing, networking and data storage equipment, as well as power and cooling infrastructure. The machines are a critical part of the national infrastructure.

And the growing dependence on these machines could have increasingly dire consequences. Over the last five years the power and cooling infrastructure that supports these systems have doubled energy use, and alternately increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Although the EPA estimates the consumption over the next five years rocket to an estimated cost of $7.4 billion annually, the report provides a light at the end of the computing tunnel. A combination of “greener” data centers through consolidating servers, energy-efficient equipment and tapping alternative energy sources could cut annual electricity costs by $1.6 billion to $5.1 billion by 2011. In turn, the report says, those moves could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 47 million metric tons a year.

And demand for more servers and data storage is going to continue to grow.

The EPA recommends the federal government lead the way in implementing energy saving methods. The sprawling federal government operates 28 of the world's 100 largest supercomputers, according to the agency and recommends it strive to reach a "best practices" example with its equipment and procurement practices to reward efficiency.